11. Where to Put All Those Odds and Ends?
We’ve talked about all the major categories of things in your house, from clothing to toys to paperwork, but what about those annoying little things that can really clutter a room? Sometimes those odds and ends can accumulate and we just don’t know where to put them!
While I was helping a client organize her family room, we needed to vacuum the rug. The vacuum was upstairs in one of the bedrooms. When we finished vacuuming I asked, “Where do you keep this?” Her answer was a blank stare. The vacuum had no home. It just remained in the room where it was last used. We quickly rearranged the family room closet and made a space for the vacuum. The closet was logical because it was a central location in the house.
In order to truly have a “place for everything,” you must identify those items in your house that don’t have a permanent home. To do this, take a walk through your house and play the game of “one of these things is not like the others.” This will help you identify what doesn’t really belong, like a sewing needle and thread in the kitchen, or a vacuum in the bedroom, or gifts that need to be wrapped on the office floor. Gather those items together and think about the most logical place to keep them. Here are some examples of mini-categories you might encounter and some options for where to keep them.
Most moms have wrapping paper and ribbons on hand at all times because you never know when someone will need to go to a birthday party. There are several wrapping paper organizers available ranging from hard plastic stand-up bins to soft vinyl totes. You also could create an organizer for yourself out of a box from a liquor store. These boxes have dividers for bottles that work just as well for large rolls of wrapping paper. You can remove some of the dividers to make space for ribbons, scissors and tape.
Assemble and contain your wrapping materials and find a home for them. Think about where you usually do the wrapping. Is it in the den, your bedroom or in the living room? Find a closet in or near that room that has enough space for the container you choose. Make the decision to keep wrapping paper there and let the whole family know where it belongs.
If you have the luxury of a completely empty closet or empty shelf in your home, you can shop in advance for gifts on hand, ready to be wrapped. One of my clients devoted an entire custom closet in her office for just this purpose. Another client used one shelf in her linen closet for extra gifts. With this category, you really need to adapt to your living space. No extra room in the house means no extra presents. However, it is a good idea to look at your monthly calendar and consolidate your gift shopping for the month. If you only have a handful of presents to buy, you could probably find a place to stash them. With little children in the house, it’s best to keep these out of sight so curious hands don’t open the gift prematurely! Like any of the big categories, have all the gifts in one place so you remember what you have! Decide where this will be: your linen closet, an empty closet, your bedroom closet or in the attic (if it’s climate controlled) and don’t tell the family! Let this one be your little secret.
Totes are a simple, spacesaving way to organize and store your wrapping paper and ribbon.
This category could include mail, donations, things that are going to a friend, or items you want to return to a store. Store your outgoing items:
If you leave a broken item exactly where it sits, you might never fix it. You may have a craft table in your home or a work bench in the garage where you do your “fix its.” If your fix-it area is crowded, plan some time in your day to do these little projects. You’ll be amazed at how quickly some can be done. Include toys and gadgets that need batteries in this area. Keep the supply of batteries close at hand as well as a container for battery recycling.
If you don’t know where to recycle your batteries, try your township or city’s department of public works.
If something needs to be taken out of the house for repair, put it in the “going out” area mentioned previously.
There are certain tools we moms seem to use all the time. It makes sense to have a small household toolbox easily accessible especially if most of your tools are in the garage, shed or basement. Put together a little box of what you use most often, such as: masking tape, hammer, nails, Phillips head screwdriver, flat screwdriver, glue and scissors. Then find a convenient place for your toolbox; possibilities include a kitchen drawer or closet, the linen closet or a hall table. I use an old lingerie dresser that has several little drawers. It’s in the hallway on the second floor and it holds tools, batteries, extension cords and light bulbs.
I learned early in motherhood that cleaning products should be kept up high, out of the reach of little children, yet I still go into many homes where cleaning products are kept under the kitchen sink. Even with safety latches, this is dangerous. Save yourself the trouble of installing latches and simply switch your cabinets around. No matter how small your house, there’s a high cabinet or shelf where you can keep cleaning products. If you want cleaning supplies in your kitchen, try putting pots and pans or plastic ware under the kitchen sink because these are items that children can play with and then move the cleaners up to high shelves. Another option is in a laundry room or linen closet on a high shelf. Limit the number of cleaners you have so they don’t take up as much room. If you want to separate the cleaning products, keep laundry cleaners in the laundry room, household cleaners in a central closet (like the linen closet) and kitchen cleaners in the pantry or a kitchen cabinet.
If you feel as if the pictures or display items in a room are mismatched, take them all down. Now look at what you have and group like things. You might group by color scheme or frame color or theme. My daughter’s room became cluttered with all her accumulated knickknacks, so we decided to organize them. We found that she had a lot of blue items and pink items. So we decided to put the blue items on a new, wooden display shelf and the pink items on top of her bureau. Another time she chose to put ocean objects on her display shelf for the summer. The fun thing about knickknacks and display items is that you can change them whenever you want. The items you don’t display can be tucked away and brought out at another time. You can organize pictures and display items room by room, or if you want a dramatic change, do your whole house at once. You can really spruce up a room by simply changing the pictures on the walls and the items on the shelves.
One of my pet peeves is people who never use their gift certificates. Why don’t they use them? Usually because they can’t find the certificate or they don’t make a plan to use it. If you think of gift cards as money, put them right in your wallet. When you’re at that store and you open your wallet to pay, you’ll see the gift card and use it. Or you can keep gift cards and certificates in a special place such as your top desk drawer or your planner as a “to do.” Make a note in your monthly list area to go a certain store or make an appointment to use the gift certificate. Keep track of any gift certificates your children receive by keeping the certificates in one location.
Here’s a category that seems to have a life of its own. Depending on how creative you and your children are, you can accumulate one to five pieces of kiddy art per day for each child. No mother wants to trash her child’s creation but then again not many moms have room for all that creativity. The key is balancing sensitivity and realism. You want to treasure your child’s creation but you must be realistic about how long to keep each piece. Here are some options:
Display it...
Stash it...
Trash it...